


who am i now (in this world without her)

by moonmoss



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Mentioned River Song, Other, Post-Regeneration (Doctor Who), The Doctor (Doctor Who) Uses They/Them Pronouns, Wedding Rings, set during episodes 11x01-11x04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25939672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonmoss/pseuds/moonmoss
Summary: “You say something’s missing…?” Grace held up her left hand and tapped the ring on her fourth finger.“Oh,” the word came out more like a sigh. “Ha,” they nodded and forced a quick smile. “That’s it. I had a ring.”In which the Doctor regenerates, loses a ring, and gets very sentimental, and the TARDIS tries to help in the only way she knows how.
Relationships: The Doctor/River Song
Comments: 30
Kudos: 74





	who am i now (in this world without her)

Looking back, the Doctor had felt _something_ off the moment there was enough quiet for them to think. They’d left the train and followed Yasmin into her police car, and the quiet was. Well. Awkward. The Doctor remembered awkward silences from lifetimes before, remembered times where they’d gripped their head in frustration, sure they were forgetting something important, but never _this particular_ itch. 

“Can we have the lights and siren on?” they had asked, desperate for _something_ to drown out the quiet discomfort under their skin.

“No!” Yasmin tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “I shouldn’t be doing any of this!”

They nodded, even though they felt that this was, quite frankly, an attack on _them_ personally. They liked sirens. Last time they’d regenerated, they’d powered down the quiet country roads in a screaming fire engine to get to Rory’s hospital.

Wait. No. Not last time. Lifetimes ago. They didn’t know. Muddled, so muddled. 

Two things they knew for sure in that moment: they were exhausted, and regeneration was a muddle. 

But they were _exhausted_. The only thing they’d seen of this body was the blur of a smile reflected in the TARDIS screens before they’d fallen out of the sky. They turned to their new body, patting down their pockets for a sign of a sonic or - 

Their gaze caught on their hands and they pulled back, stared at their own fingers with a frown. 

“You alright?” asked Graham. 

They shook their head. “I’m missing something,” they said. Their hands were too small. Thin, long fingers. They looked naked. “Head’s still buzzin’,” they shot a look over their shoulder at the three cramped in the back seats. “So, you three know each other?”

“I’m his Nan,” Grace smiled. “Graham’s me husband.”

“ _Second_ husband,” Ryan muttered.

They felt themself freeze slightly. _Husband_. Hadn’t they been a husband once? More than once? Recently?

“You say something’s missing…?” Grace held up her left hand and tapped the ring on her fourth finger.

“Oh,” the word came out more like a sigh. “Ha,” they nodded and forced a quick smile. “That’s it. I had a ring.”

Not important now, the TARDIS was probably looking after it for them. It was better to focus on the situation at hand.

The moment they noticed, though… they couldn’t _stop_ noticing. Every time they caught a glimpse of Graham or Grace’s rings, every time they caught sight of their own empty hands, it was like they were realising anew. 

“Who were they then?” Yasmin asked over the sound of the Doctor hammering spoons. “Your spouse? Where are they?”

 _Thunk_ \- the Doctor hit the table by mistake. _Where are they_? They wanted to laugh. As if River wasn’t everywhere they looked. In everything they did. As if River wasn’t everywhere, every _when._ Everything.

“Ah,” they twirled the hammer in their hands, settled for simply saying, “she’s gone.”

“Oh,” Yasmin’s eyes widened. “I’m so sorry.”

The Doctor nodded awkwardly, went back to hammering. They pretended not to notice Yasmin going to whisper quietly to the others, pretended not to notice Grace and Graham cling slightly tighter to one another. 

They ignored it. Focused on their spoons, glad that the gloves hid their naked fingers.

See, it was like this: when the bowtie River had tied around their wrists was gone, faded into a non-existent universe, the Doctor had found a ring, a memory. 

“Sentimental,” they’d murmured, even as they’d pushed it onto their finger, and they’d rubbed the TARDIS console in silent thanks.

Clara had asked about it, over coffee in Glasgow. The Doctor had shrugged and evaded her and Clara had just smiled over the rim of her cup. 

“So you and River are having data-ghost dates now?”

And the Doctor had thrown a sugar sachet at her. 

Bill had never asked about the ring but then, the portrait sat clear on their desk, and she’d likely prodded Nardole for the full story after they'd let it slip at the Frost Fair.

And it was likely clear that the Doctor was in mourning.

The Doctor remembered all of this at Grace’s funeral and didn’t bother hiding their tears. No one was paying attention to them anyway. Still, they stood in the back and watched Graham’s quiet grief, and they were filled with sudden, sharp and familiar feelings.

First, the regret and grief, for Grace and all she should have been, could have been. Too young. Their fault. This body is so young and already has blood on its hands. The Doctor should be used to it but they’re not.

Secondly, the yearning. The need to find the TARDIS so they could scour the gratings for their ring. The need to run away, to go _home_ , the need for her beautiful arched wardrobe, her soft hum reassuring a Doctor that didn’t know themself quite yet. 

They had remembered the last time, another body cold in an alley staring at their reflection in a puddle, an old man with a coat, a warm voice saying " _no, that watch was beautiful_!", a cool unfamiliar band pressing onto their finger the only grounding feeling until they’d found their way to the TARDIS again.

The time before that, hands tugging clothes off pegs in a hospital, tying ties around their neck on a rooftop.

Christmas music humming in the background as they ran their tongue over their teeth and twirled their coat in front of a mirror, the TARDIS’s approving rumble making them laugh fondly before they’d set out for a big dinner with Jackie, Mickey, Rose. 

The time before, a blur of memories lost to the paradox of meeting two of their future selves.

It had been lifetimes since then. Billions of years. The Doctor could barely remember how it felt to wear that face. Any of those faces.

They looked down at their hands, grimaced, _itched_. But they waited, instead. For once. They watched the memorial play out and let Yasmin drag them to a charity shop and buy them clothes and they let Graham feed them before they left. 

Of course, they’d messed up, accidentally dragged the three humans along into space at their side. 

The TARDIS hummed under their touch, warm and loving and gentle as ever. 

“My beautiful ghost monument,” the Doctor let out a long breath, head pressed to her panels.

This, they knew about themself in that moment: they were the Doctor, and they belonged with _this_ TARDIS, wandering the universe, helping out. Trying to be kind.

They couldn’t find the ring. In between their attempts at taking Graham, Yasmin and Ryan back home, they looked and looked and looked and it was nowhere to be found. The TARDIS hummed and the Doctor couldn’t understand her for the first time in their lives. When the Doctor tried heading out for the wardrobe the TARDIS just looped back around, leading them back to the main console room time and time again.

She didn't want them to try out other clothes? Just go with whatever they’d found in _one_ charity shop on Earth?

Yasmin found them after a while, glaring at the console, silent even as they mentally screamed at her. 

“Are you okay!?” Yasmin asked. She reached out to put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, probably attempting to calm.

The Doctor jerked away and tried their best not to turn their glare on her instead.

The Doctor suspected this about themself in this moment: touch on this body was like fire, like poison, burning in their very veins, itching under their skin.

“I lost something,” they managed to spit out. “And she’s not telling me where it went.”

The TARDIS hummed again. 

“Shut _up_ ,” the Doctor braced themself against the console, ducked their head to hide how their eyes stung with tears.

They ignored the sound of Ryan and Graham approaching too, ignored Yasmin and the hum of the TARDIS, the discomfort that still prickled under their palms, ignored everything but the huff of their own breath.

“Doctor, I…” Yasmin tried again. “The ring?”

The Doctor’s fists clenched against the console.

“My fingers got smaller when I-” they cut themself off. “ _River_ gave it to me,” they pushed away to stop themself from whacking the console. “‘Child of the TARDIS’, what a joke. Give it back.”

The TARDIS lights dimmed.

The Doctor turned away from the console, ran a hand through their hair, tried not to feel annoyed when it tickled the back of their neck. They looked at Ryan, Graham, finally Yasmin. 

“Let’s try and get you home again,” they said, glum. “Maybe we’ll see thirteenth time lucky.”

What a joke. As if they weren’t struggling enough, now the TARDIS hated them too? The home they’d been so desperate to return to and now she’s blocking them out?

They remembered this later: the TARDIS had played this game before. 

“I always take you where you _need_ to go,” she’d told them, warm and real and _alive_ before their eyes. 

And she did. 

The Doctor showed Graham, Yasmin and Ryan the asteroid named for Rosa Parks. The TARDIS cooperated. They managed to get the humans back home and they were all set to leave, but - 

But the three of them decided to stay. 

The Doctor smiled at their pile of hands. 

“I love this bit,” they admitted lightly, and eight hands pushed together to send the TARDIS into the vortex.

Ryan giggled slightly and the four of them took a moment to beam at each other. 

The TARDIS hummed under the Doctor’s palm. They looked around. 

“Oh,” they gasped slightly, joy over brimming all of a sudden. “Thank you.”

A ring glinted, round and obvious, offered by a TARDIS drawer like a peace offering.

They wondered for a moment, lightly, if it was a reward. Or if the TARDIS had just been working on finding it, fixing it up maybe. 

They weren’t sure. It didn’t matter. They picked up the ring so, so tenderly. It was cold to the touch and familiar and the Doctor couldn’t help themself from tearing up even through their smile. 

“Doc?”

They shook their head, offered the fam a short grin to reassure them. 

“Doesn’t fit anymore,” they said, ring hanging loose around every single finger they tried. “Small hands.”

“You could get it resized,” Ryan suggested. 

The Doctor flinched. “I… it’s not really. I can’t. It was given to me before I was like this.”

It felt wrong to change it when they still remembered the feel of it around their finger when River had noticed it for the first time, the touch of her hands on theirs, soft, gentle, warm. Then her lips, pressing against the ring, then against their fingers, then the sight of her blinding smile - 

The Doctor swallowed, thumb running over the stone set in its centre.

“I… I have an idea,” said Graham, and if he hadn’t commented on the Doctor’s misty eyes, they wouldn’t comment on his. They had been trying not to think about where Graham’s own ring still sat, tried not to think about how he had looked at them after the Doctor had said ‘ _I carry them with me_ ’ after Grace’s memorial.

“You said it’s telepathic right,” he gestured to the TARDIS console. “I can just think at it?”

The Doctor nodded. “Helps if you touch her. She likes that.”

Graham laughed slightly, but did so. 

A moment later, another panel popped out. Graham picked up whatever she gave him, and then held out his other hand. The Doctor hesitated for a second, then passed him the ring.

He looped it through a long chain, then offered it out again.

The Doctor knew this for sure about themself now: they do not like to be touched. This new body is different to the one before (old, Scottish, _reluctant_ ), this one _burned_ at the merest _brush_ of someone else’s touch. They’d thought as much but confirmed it after hugging Yasmin’s mother earlier. 

So they didn’t duck their head, but took the chain from Graham’s hands and looped the chain around their own neck. 

_I carry them with me_ , they remembered again as they felt the weight of their ring settle against their chest. They looked at where it lay, felt the lump in their throat again, the itch under their skin of _wrongness_. They longed for River’s hands, the reassuring sight of her rolling her eyes fondly.

But they have missed her for billions of years, they would make it through missing her a moment more. And then another moment. And then maybe forever.

They swallowed, tucked the chain under their t-shirt and out of sight, let it press, cool and light and steady over their second heart. 

“Thank you,” they said to Graham, voice softer than this one has ever been. They turned back to the console without another word, blinking the tears out of their eyes. “So, I’m thinking Calderon IV? They have a lovely spice market that I think you...”

**Author's Note:**

> I have had this in my drafts for ages......... Chibnall is a coward for not even HINTING at River in 2 seasons. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr [@gaybillpotts](https://gaybillpotts.tumblr.com/) & the title is from It's Over Isn't It? sung by Deedee Magno Hall in SU


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